Posts tagged with 'England'

Bowling is a sport that consists of throwing a heavy ball down a long impasse, called an alley, toward bowling pins. There are a few different types of bowling, which vary in how many bowling pins are in place. Ten-pin bowling, which is prevalent in the United States, consists of ten pins. Ten-pin bowling evolved from Nine-pin bowling which is played in Europe. Ten-pin bowling, however, is played around the world in championships and other amateur activities, making it the more common form of bowling around the world.

The origins of bowling can be traced back to places like Finland, Yemen, Germany, Egypt, and India (Tenpinbowling). Popularization came during the feudalism era in England, where there are records of King Edward III restricted his soldiers from playing bowling in favor of working on their archery skills instead (Tenpinbowling). As bowling became more popular, it spread to the other countries of Europe, and propagated into the rest of the countries where the game is played today. Variations of bowling play with the concept of how many pins are to be knocked down, or modifications to the score sheet. (Wikipedia)

Bowling also takes place in other parts of our culture, like film and television. Movies like The Big Lebowski and Kingpin incorporate the sport into its story, but in different ways (Findarticles). TheBig Lebowski portrays the game as an aside, more like a hobby that characters share in common while events greater than themselves are happening around them. Kingpin is all about the game itself and the competition involved in it. The bowling ball is infamous for its weight, and is featured as a “weapon” in Mystery Men. The Hanna-Barbera cartoon “The Flintstones” also featured many occurrences where the main characters of the show would be bowling at various times during the series.

Even though bowling may not be a defining piece of world culture, it is one of the underlying aspects that create it. Bowling is a sport that many people can get involved in, whether it be for professional league play or just hanging out with friends during a session of Nitro Bowling.

On a chain of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following people are stranded:
– Two Italian men and one Italian woman
– Two French men and one French woman
– Two German men and one German woman
– Two Greek men and one Greek woman
– Two English men and one English woman
– Two Bulgarian men and one Bulgarian woman
– Two Japanese men and one Japanese woman
– Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman
– Two Irish men and one Irish woman
– Two American men and one American woman

–

One month later, on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:

One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a “ménage à trois.”

The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.

The two Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cleaning and cooking for them.

The two English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman.

The two Bulgarian men took one look at the Bulgarian woman and started swimming to another island.

The two Japanese men have faxed Tokyo and are waiting for instructions.

The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, liquor store, restaurant and laundry, and have gotten the woman pregnant in order to supply employees for their store.

The two Irish men divided the island into North and South and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets somewhat foggy after a few liters of coconut whiskey. However, they’re satisfied because the English aren’t having any fun.

The two American men are contemplating suicide, because the American woman will not shut the fuck up and complains relentlessly about her body, the true nature of feminism, what the sun is doing to her skin, how she can do anything they can do, the necessity of fulfillment, the equal division of household chores, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do, and how her relationship with her mother is the root cause of all her problems, and why didn’t they bring a goddamn cell phone so they could call 911 and get them all rescued off this godforsaken deserted island in the middle of friggin’ nowhere so she can get her nails done and go shopping…

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Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn’t be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example…

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, “ko-kou-ko-le,” which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth.”

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” came out as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.”

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came out as “eat your fingers off.”

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go.” After the company figured out why it wasn’t selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for “tiny male genitals”. Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, the company’s mistakenly thought the spanish word “embarazar” meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that “It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of the desired “I Saw the Pope” in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed “I Saw the Potato.”

Chicken-man Frank Perdue’s slogan, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,” got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained “It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused.”

Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means “big breasts.” In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

Japan’s second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.